BUSINESS AND CREATION COLLEGE ROCvF

The Regional Training Center of Flevoland (ROC Flevoland) has prepared business plan for a new multifunctional accommodation of approximately 10.000 m2 in the center of Almere Poort for between 1,500 and 2,000 youth and adult training. Named the, ‘Business and Creation College’ the new college building will be realized beside the adjacent Olympia Quarter East that is focused on housing, employment, education, social services in conjunction with sports and leisure (sports hall and swimming pool).

In the new economy, the education building can be seen as a catalyst for the urban environment. Students, businesses and governments are working more and more together in an innovative way with education in order to make a bridge to work, society and further education. The concept of the Business and Creation College is to be generate an inviting and visual learning environment as a spatial game between the outside and inside worlds. The massing of the new building becomes inviting and recognizable through lifting the main entrance of the school as prominent as possible towards the railway station and bus station.

This lift generates a new educational corridor that forms a play between the world of ‘inside’ (school) and the world of ‘outside’ (society). The college concept is translated as a journey where the routing in the form of an undulating staircase that slowly moves around a central courtyard, whilst creating meeting and study places for the users and visitors of the college. Along the route, the different educational departments are identifiable as smaller and unique interior environments within a larger whole.

The overall vision is to present the building as an inviting, attractive and inspiring learning environment. To compliment this inner world, the facade expression is given a powerful, high-contrast pattern of colored and printed glass so that the college is given a recognizable and striking appearance from far and near. Classrooms and practice work spaces are compositionally united through floor to ceiling windows that provide a pleasant learning and working environment. The additional functions in the plinth contribute to the activity of the public space in a lively young dynamic neighborhood.